History VideoGame / PokemonConquest

*** Munna has Hypnosis, which can put opponents to sleep for a few turns but has low accuracy and can't actually inflict damage. Its evolution, Musharna, has "Dream Eater" which ''does'' inflict damage, but only if the opponent is already asleep, so it's virtually useless on the battlefield if you have no way to put the enemy to sleep... which often requires dragging a Munna around (one of Musharna's abilities, Lullaby, can do so, but it rarely activates).

*** Any Pokémon that gains the ability "Confidence" from evolving may as well have no ability at all. The ability is supposed to boost the defense of your allies, but due to an oversight, the defense boost wears off before the enemy's turn starts.

* PeekABangs: Masamune, because the real-life counterpart was blind in said eye.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Warlords will often be much more powerful than any of their generic underlings, boasting tougher Pokémon and higher Warrior stats. If they've reached Rank II or higher, they'll even have unique and powerful Warrior Skills.

** Nagayasa and his Bidoof. It has Simple, but his Warrior Ability boosts attack power. Combined, that Bidoof can hit for 60 HP easily for three turns.

** Warriors who have a Perfect Link with Ralts might be forced to make a 50/50 guess on whether to evolve it into Gardevoir or Gallade to maintain the Perfect Link, and there's no way to know without searching it up. Somewhat averted for Snorunt users, since there is only one female Warrior who has a Perfect Link with Snorunt, making it rather obvious who the Froslass user will be.

* JokeCharacter: The generic Warrior Ujizane (who historically is the son of Yoshimoto, himself a JokeCharacter). He has 6 Power, 8 Wisdom, 62 Charisma, he can only have ''one'' Pokémon, he starts with a thoroughly pathetic Igglybuff, his perfect link is Forretress, and his ability, which increases the chances of inflicting status ailments, doesn't work on Forretress since it attacks with Gyro Ball. His Bug specialty lets him get other Bug-types with status attacks (notably Galvantula or Beedrill) and put his ability to good use, but that doesn't make him any less of a joke character.

*** Another use for Yoshimoto is that Forretress's high defense combined with an instant healing ability whose drawback is making it UNABLE TO MOVE suddenly makes it an impenetrable StoneWall that no enemy can hope to get past, so long as ElementalRockPaperScissors they don't bring [[KillItWithFire a Fire-type along.]] As an added bonus, Forretress can be given the Jagged Edge ability, [[TheSpiny which damages attacking enemies that make contact]] and offsets its crappy attack by making opponents kill themselves trying to get past it. (Hilariously, Jagged Edge always leaves enemies with at least 1 HP, which is exactly the same amount of damage that Forretress does.) This means that for any mission where you have to HoldTheLine (which is every mission you are the one getting attacked for, as well as to an extent every mission with banners), he's a very powerful Warlord, only outclassed by the likes of Ieyasu and his [[OlympusMons Registeel]]--and if you use both of them together...

** Terrara has three banners high atop massive towers with lifts that carry Pokémon up to the top, but the first turn someone is on top of a tower, and every few turns after that, a sandstorm blows all Pokémon off the towers. The AI, thanks to ArtificialStupidity, will always make a beeline for the rightmost banner ignoring this, allowing the player to move their Pokémon into position to move onto the lifts once the sandstorm passes, and then claim the banners next turn and win. This can be done as early as the third turn, and you'll have no trouble doing it within four turns.

* ScareChord: [[spoiler:Mewtwo and Arceus are both present, and they've still got pretty freaky cries.]] Failing a story's mission will also land you with a very dark, absolutely out-of-nowhere depression chord as the story leader laments their failure. Even worse when the failure is for a reason that [[GuideDangIt no one anticipated]] and might even have you [[JumpScare not looking at your DS]] when it happens. Someone else pick up 100 Pokémon? Turns out that reason enough for Keiji to get upset.

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: The initial story gradually opens access to more and more of the region as you claim kingdoms. The second 'section' of Ransei available contains Pugilis, full of Fighting-type Pokémon. The player character is the ruler of Aurora, the Normal-type kingdom; your starting Eevee can't evolve until after the game's halfway mark[[labelnote:*]]Technically, Leafeon's evolution condition is a stat threshold while deployed in Greenleaf, but that would require a LOT of grinding your Link[[/labelnote]], and Oichi has a Jigglypuff. Oichi voices her concern once when the kingdom becomes available, and then again when you first go to actually attack.

** Shingen and Kenshin's armies are ''much'' stronger than you're used to, and they're the first opponents to include fully-evolved Pokémon (Rhyperior and Gallade). Oh, and they add a variety of different type users to avert PoorPredictableRock.

* TheThingThatGoesDoink: One appears in Chrysalia, and tips over to signal a new Pokémari ball (up to four) dropping down onto the field.

The game is set in the fictional region of Ransei, where warriors fight alongside Pokémon. You play as a young person who befriends an Eevee and has recently become the Warlord (leader) of a kingdom named Aurora. Legend states that they who conquers all of Ransei will unleash the Legendary Pokemon that created it. You must race to conquer all the other kingdoms before a Warlord named Nobunaga can, or else he will destroy the region. After completing the main story you further unlock bonus side-stories where the supporting Warlords each get their turn as the protagonist of their own focused tale with varying plots, such as a competition between the ninja Warlords, a beauty contest between the female Warlords, or trying to conquer enemy nations and/or recruit a large army to prove their worth to doubting enemies.

As with ''Nobunaga's Ambition'', the game is a StrategyRPG. You command an army of Warriors and higher-ranking Warlords to move about the world map invading enemy nations and conscripting defeated Warriors and Warlords to serve you. When you're not attacking enemies you can stay at home upgrading nation facilities for better efficiency, making and spending money at shops, and of course, going into the field to draft wandering Warriors and catch new Pokémon. In Ransei, no one uses Pokéballs; instead Warriors have the ability to form empathic links with Pokémon, convincing them to come along with you on their own will. While gameplay otherwise works out to your standard Strategy RPG, it is supplemented with the typical Pokémon concepts of evolution, type advantages, and innate Pokémon abilities.

There is a six-chapter manga adaptation named ''Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition: Ranse Picture Scroll'' that began on March 16, 2012 and is hosted on [[http://seiga.nicovideo.jp/comic/48?list Niconico Seiga]]. In 2016, the game received a Japan-only SpiritualSuccessor ''Yo-kai Three Kingdoms'', featuring rival franchises ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch'' and ''VideoGame/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''.

** Yoshimoto goes from Samurai Warriors' JokeCharacter and flat-out worst character to coming with a Pineco, the best unevolved Bug-type available at that point. Sadly this pairing doesn't last long, since while Yoshimoto gets slightly better after transforming (Grace is possibly worth using if you have a teammate with Shout, whereas Deep Breath is almost never worth using), Forretress is a defender in a game that focuses heavily on the offensive roles. Ultimately, however, Yoshimoto still ends up much better than he was in Samurai Warriors, since there's no rule saying that he has to use Forretress.

** The clothing style of some of the Warlords. Sun visors probably weren't a standard in Japanese fashion back then. Ditto Masanori with his [[Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann Kamina]] [[TriangleShades Shades]], and Gracia's ''top hat''.

** The game will ''never'' let a Pokemon flinch twice in a row, for any reason. As flinch effectively forces you to skip your turn completely, it's a welcome relief when it happens to you, and avoids breaking the fight's difficulty in half since you can't spam it on opponents.
** Minor, but still present. Moves that require a recharge turn or have negative user effects, such as Rock Wrecker or Leaf Storm, will only apply said condition if you ''hit'' the opponent - particularly on the former, if you miss you're allowed to use it again on the next turn as if nothing happened. This mechanic carries over from the main series.

* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Although each Warrior can form Links with multiple Pokemon, you can only take one Mon (per Warrior) into battle at a time. Also, each kingdom only allows up to six Warriors/Warlords to reside within them - or attack other kingdoms - at once, though this is in completely line with Pokemon's setup.

** In banner battles, the AI prioritizes claiming/holding a banner over attacking your Pokémon -- it will refuse to move away from a banner it has claimed, even if doing so can allow it to KO a nearby opponent with a super-effective move. Even if it's the only Pokémon remaining on the field, it will usually stay underneath the banner rather than try to move about and claim the rest (not that a lone Pokémon has much chance of that anyway, but still). Pugilis is easy to win for these reasons alone, as its banners are located on the corners of a small arena ring (where any attack knocks a Pokémon out of the ring, forcing them to spend several turns looping back to the ring's chokepoint entrances). To make matters worse, the AI won't split up to try to claim multiple banners, instead focusing all its troops on one banner at a time.

** While the AI does acknowledge type advantages and immunities when attacking, it doesn't account for ''abilities'' that provide type immunities, resulting in the AI having a Pokemon with a Ground attack trying to hit a Pokémon with Levitate, using Fire attacks on something with Flash Fire, etc.

** Much like the main series, many powerful moves have lower accuracy or negative side effects when compared to weaker moves. For example, Rhyperior's "Rock Wrecker" can one-shot just about anything, but cannot be used two consecutive turns in a row if it hits. Many of these show up after Pokémon evolution - see PowerupLetdown for more examples.

** Many Warriors are more effective with certain Pokémon that are ''not'' their Perfect Link Pokémon (again, in most cases you'll never actually need the Pokémon to get that strong a Link). Take Yoshimoto -- a StoneWall with his Perfect Link (Forretress), but an effective front-liner if you give him a Scizor.

* BagOfSpilling: Your link level and finances are reset to a default level (usually around 10-20% and 1800 gold) in every post-game episode; likewise with any upgraded locations in your kingdoms. You do at least get to keep your actual Pokemon (including evolved Pokemon), provided that they've been saved to the gallery (see DiscOneNuke below).

* BlownAcrossTheRoom: There are moves that knock a Pokemon back one square when hit with them. There's an ability, Thrust, which causes all moves to knock the target back a square. If you get both on the same Pokemon, this trope is often the result.
* BoringButPractical: Overlapping with one of the game's DiscOneNuke options as described below, the unevolved Dragon-types all have Dragon Rage which always does 40 damage, but is relatively inaccurate (missing about 30% of the time). Enter the many Warriors with Marksman or Eagle Eye as their ability, giving them 1-3 turns of boosted accuracy. Get such a Warrior a Dragon-type, and in any story where you're fortunate enough to be able to recruit them early on, they can obliterate a lot of the competition by just firing off their ability and attacking with 100%-accurate Dragon Rages.
* BraggingRightsReward: [[spoiler: The hero's final form, Black Rayquaza, and Arceus]] can only be acquired in the 'Two Heroes of Ransei' episode, which is only playable once every other senior warlord story is completed [[note]]And even then, [[spoiler:Black Rayquaza]] requires you have to have registered ''all other Legendary Pokemon first''[[/note]]. Even if you get them by only completing all senior warlord stories (plus the handful of junior warlord stories that unlock them), you might barely get any use out of them in the remaining stories, and you certainly wouldn't have needed them to beat them anyway.

* {{Cap}}: Damage caps at 999, though you'll usually only see numbers this high when hitting a double weakness on a dual-typed Pokemon (or with a grotesque amount of over-levelling).

** Once you control a majority of territories on the map (e.g. nine of 17, five of eight, four of seven, etc.) the opposing warlords will [[RubberBandAI jump the levels of its mons to match yours]]. Except it doesn't work correctly: the level jump is decided by your strongest nation (regardless of how many people are in there) and how many nations you have adjacent to their territories and how strong their allies get. Which means if say you have someone surrounded on all sides with 6 warriors in your strongest nation with a strength of 1500 and they have 4 people their levels will jump up to match yours but because it's split between 4 instead of 6, they're a hell of a lot harder to beat. On the other hand, this can fail spectacularly if it messes up and instead they'll be at half your strength instead.
** Enemies will normally not attack Mons they can't damage, ie. Ground against Flying types or levitating mons. Yet they can tell a Zorua/Zoroark disguised by its Illusion ability and will attack it accordingly. This makes Illusion worse than useless, since it might confuse the player, especially if it's disguised as a Lilligant or Haxorus, who both have the same attack pattern as Zoroark. For a lesser example, warp tiles take effect ''after'' a Pokemon has moved to a square and their turn has ended, right? Not if a Pokemon is confused -- a confused Pokemon can move onto one, warp around, ''then immediately attack'' on the same turn.
* CostumePorn: The art team clearly had a lot of fun designing the outfits for the various characters -- especially their upgraded forms, which run the gauntlet of every cool outfit trope you can think of, including SpikesOfVillainy for Nobunaga, BadassCape for the Hero, PimpedOutDress for Oichi, and more. At least one character in the game is bound to have you in awe at how badass their armor is.

* DesignatedGirlFight: The majority of the female Warriors' special episodes center around a contest to determine "Ransei's Greatest Beauty", where the only available Warriors (generic warriors included) are females. [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg And]] [[DudeLooksLikeALady Ranmaru]].

** Yoshimoto's Pineco is a rather useful Pokemon to have on hand, since its Bug Bite can eat potions the enemy is holding, and can deal good damage against Dark and Psychic types. Once it evolves into Forretress, however, he becomes more of a JokeCharacter, since Forretress's Gyro Ball, which does damage based on speed, will almost always deal 1 point of damage. However, to make up for this, the needed link level to get Yoshimoto to Rank 2 is 55%[[note]]normally, the link level needed to rank a warlord up is 65-70%[[/note]], meaning that once you get him to Rank 2, you can swap out his Forretress for a better Pokemon like Scizor if you don't want to use him as a StoneWall.

** All unevolved Dragon-type Pokemon (Dratini, Gible, Axew, Deino) have "Dragon Rage", which like the main series always inflicts [[FixedDamageAttack exactly 40 damage]] regardless of target, making it a OneHitKill for low level Pokemon. And with the high number of post-game chapters - many of which are only ''disc one'' in length - you will have a ''lot'' of chances to use it.

** Although your Link level with your Pokemon is reset when starting any of the postgame side stories, Pokemon/Warrior evolution is not, meaning that you typically start side stories with fully-evolved Pokemon at your disposal while your opponents must start from scratch. This is maintained with every warrior you recruit in the side stories: They may be using one Pokemon on the field, but once you recruit them, all their old Pokemon are intact.
** Beedrill comes pre-evolved on several wandering Warriors.[[note]]It's actually the only Pokémon that isn't featured alongside its evolutionary relatives, showing up as a stand-alone while Weedle and Kakuna are entirely absent.[[/note]] It has Twinneedle, which hits two squares in front of it, does decent damage, might inflict poison, and they often have the Vanguard ability for a power boost if they move first on your turn. Once your other Pokémon start evolving, just like in the main series, Beedrill will quickly be outclassed and left at home, except in some instances where you're starved for options that don't use a Poison-type move.

* DragonsUpTheYinYang: Generation V makes this ''mandatory''. Nobunaga introduces himself with ''[[ShockAndAwe Zekrom]]'' hanging off the top of your screen, and when you get to Dragnor he's ready to Bolt Strike your ass back to the Sengoku period. Though not as prominent, his ally [[spoiler:Hideyoshi]] can pick up ''[[PlayingWithFire Reshiram]]'' - which initially needed the Wi-Fi event, but can now be unlocked by the right code and/or randomly found in Ignis during Hideyoshi's episode. Oh, and before you start protesting that those dragons aren't Eastern enough for you: [[spoiler:"Come forth! Rayquaza, black as night!"]]

* FrictionlessIce: Present in the Nixtorm castle battlefield, as well as any Level 3 Icy Mountain field. Any non-Ice Pokémon who steps onto it will slide clear across to the other side. [[note]]The ice doesn't affect Flying-types and Pokemon with Levitate.[[/note]]

* GetBackHereBoss: Any enemy Pokémon with a move that hits from exactly 2 or 3 squares away will ''always'' run away from a Pokémon whose move strikes adjacent tiles only in order to get them in its attack range -- for example, Chimchar, Charmander, and Tepig can only strike from exactly 2 squares with "Ember", while Ralts and Gothita can only strike from exactly 3 squares with "Confusion". The early castle battle for Ignis, where you face Hideyoshi's Chimchar (and a Tepig) on a lava-filled arena, is your first experience of this: Hideyoshi is perfectly comfortable standing back in the lava and peppering you from a distance if you can't find some way to corner him on solid ground.

** A gold Link icon above a wild Pokemon doesn't guarantee that this one is Perfect Link for a Warlord (special Warrior) since they generally have a gold rating with almost any Pokemon matching their specialty. (Though a Pokémon with 90% max link is probably worth using regardless.) On the other hand, generic Warriors can only reach 70% at most with families other than their Perfect Link, so if a Pokémon has a gold Link icon, it's guaranteed to be the one.
** Warriors who have a Perfect Link with Ralts might be forced to make a 50/50 guess on whether to evolve it into Gardevoir or Gallade to maintain the Perfect Link, and there's no way to know without searching it up. Somewhat averted for Snorunt users since there is only one female warrior who has a Perfect Link with Snorunt, making it rather obvious who the Froslass user will be.

*** Groudon, Mewtwo, and Articuno all require that you clear Shingen, Kenshin, and Mitsuhide’s stories respectively right off the bat. Mitsuhide’s campaign in particular can be pretty damn annoying to beat when you realize that you have to single-handedly beat back and conquer Nobunaga’s empire under a (albeit very generous) time limit of three in-game years. Once that’s out of the way, you have to upgrade certain facilities in Terrera, Illusio, and Nixtorm to Level 3 before the Legendary Pokémon’s dens show up.

*** Dialga, Registeel, and Zekrom are the worst offenders, as they need specific Crystals: the Warrior Crystal for Tadakatsu, the Unifier Crystal for Ieyasu, and the Conqueror Crystal for Nobunaga. To get them, each of their owners must first achieve their Rank II transformation, which entails attaining Link percentages of 70-'''80%''' with their Perfect Links (Metagross, Aggron, and Hydreigon), whose obtainment range from a little frustrating to outright [[LuckBasedMission luck-based.]] After that, you need to control 12 kingdoms with Nobunaga, Mitsuhide, and Ranmaru in the same place for the Conqueror Crystal, have at least 50 Warriors plus Rank II Ina (65% Link with Prinplup) for the Warrior Crystal, and the Unifier Crystal needs Tadakatsu and Ieyasu to be in Valora, at least 15 Warriors to be in your army, and at least half of them has to have found their Perfect Link (see below), ''in Ieyasu’s story only.'' Once you clear the absurd amount of hoops that the game expects you to jump through and equip the Crystals to their owners, the Legendary Pokémon will appear the following month.

** While most Pokemon evolve in methods similar to the main series (e.g. level-grinding or evolutionary stones), the exact details are different and may require the Mon to have specific stats in order for evolution to take place.

** Special passwords that cause a swarm of rare Pokemon to appear can only be used ''once'' per game. You cannot reuse a password to cause another swarm without the use of cheating devices.

** Figuring out some 100% links. Your only real hint is preferred type. What this means is ANY Pokemon with that type. If the warrior prefers Normal-types, this could mean ANY Normal-type Pokémon (which means non-elemental birds are all included). If someone prefers two types, it means any Pokémon with EITHER of them (Normal and Flying preferred means ANY Pokémon with the Normal-type OR Flying-type). Even worse with Pokémon who don't appear in all the places with their traits, which means having them find it on their own can be a pain. (For example, preferred type Flying? Send him looking for it in Avia. If it's Emolga, an Electric/Flying-type who only appears in Violight, he'll never find it.)

** During Mitsuhide's chapter, when attacking a nation defended by Nobunaga he'll say "The enemy is inside [Name of Castle]!" like he did in real life.
** Each character has a specific quote for when they're defeated by something other than the enemy; Nobunaga's is "How fitting." One possible trigger is any of the various environmental hazards on the battlefield, most of which are luck-based; Nobunaga's real-world conquest found many of his most powerful rivals destroyed by [[BornLucky sheer luck]]. Another trigger is friendly fire, in allusion to his betrayal at Honnouji.
** When fighting Mitsuhide, Hideyoshi will say "We can't lose to Mitsuhide!" and his Pokemon will get a huge buff for the battle. A reference to how Hideyoshi defeated Mitsuhide in real life.

* IncurableCoughOfDeath: Hanbei starts coughing up a storm at the end of his episode. When Hideyoshi asks if he's sick, Hanbei's response was that he [[DefinitelyJustACold got too excited.]] Kanbei doesn't buy it one bit causing Hanbei to tell him not to say anything.
* InstantWinCondition: Banner battles are won by capturing all the flag banners on the field, regardless of whether you can defeat the opposing Mons or not (except Pugilis, where you have to also hold them for five turns). Be careful though -- if the enemy does this first, ''they'' win, too!

** The map of Ransei is a dead giveaway of [[spoiler:the identity of the legendary Pokémon which the game frequently alludes to.]]
** Abilities activating. Grass Guard doesn't activate on grass? The attack misses. Stealth - activates only when it makes attack miss. Sturdy activating on an attack that shouldn't OHKO it? You likely got a crit.

* JokeCharacter: The generic Warrior Ujizane (who historically is the son of Yoshimoto, himself a JokeCharacter). He has 6 Power, 8 Wisdom, 62 Charisma, he can only have ''one'' Pokemon, he starts with a thoroughly pathetic Igglybuff, his perfect link is Forretress, and his ability, which increases the chances of inflicting status ailments, doesn't work on Forretress since it attacks with Gyro Ball. His Bug specialty lets him get other Bug-types with status attacks (notably Galvantula or Beedrill) and put his ability to good use, but that doesn't make him any less of a joke character.

** The game's advertised 200 warriors are comprised primarily of a little over three dozen different generic character designs re-used several times each with different names, type preferences, and abilities. Altogether, there's only around 70 unique designs for the warlords, or about 107 if you're feeling generous enough to include the evolved designs.

** Gracia has poor Power, subpar Wisdom and decent Charisma and comes with a Munna, which can't do any damage and whose evolved form can only attack sleeping opponents, but her Perfect link is actually with Gothitelle, a powerful Psychic type. Of course, you still have to actually ''train'' up a Gothita into its third form. Even better, her Rank 2 skill gives the chance that ''any'' attack used by ''any'' teammate will likely confuse the enemy Pokemon it hits.
** Yoshimoto has unspectacular stats for a Warlord, mostly useless abilities, a bad Perfect Link line (Pineco and Forretress, the latter of which will only do one point of damage to most enemies), [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and a silly design and personality]]. However, he can get 90% link with a variety of powerful Pokémon such as Scizor, Gengar, and Darmanitan. Load him up with a diverse group beforehand, recruit him in a later episode, and he'll more than likely have a Pokemon on hand that you can use as a sweeper, no matter what your neighbors have.
*** Another use for Yoshimoto is that Forretress's high defense combined with an instant healing ability whose drawback is making it UNABLE TO MOVE suddenly makes it an impenetrable StoneWall that no enemy can hope to get past, so long as ElementalRockPaperScissors they don't bring [[KillItWithFire a fire type along.]] As an added bonus, Forretress can be given the Jagged Edge ability, [[TheSpiny which damages attacking enemies that make contact]] and offsets its crappy attack by making opponents kill themselves trying to get past it. (Hilariously, Jagged Edge always leaves enemies with at least 1 HP, which is exactly the same amount of damage that Forretress does.) This means that for any mission where you have to HoldTheLine (which is every mission you are the one getting attacked for, as well as to an extent every mission with banners), he's a very powerful Warlord, only outclassed by the likes of Ieyasu and his [[OlympusMons Registeel]] - and if you use both of them together...

** Zigzagged, surprisingly for this series. Evolved Pokemon have much higher stats than their unevolved forms and usually have better attacks, but at the trade-off of lower Range. This means evolved Pokemon tend to be {{Mighty Glacier}}s while unevolved Pokemon are {{Fragile Speedster}}s. There are exceptions of course both ways, but in general you'll find there are plenty of times when an unevolved Pokemon is preferable to its evolved form. See PowerUpLetdown further down the page for specific examples.
** The trope-naming Magikarp appears in rank and file attendance here. Much like its incarnation in the main series, it's completely useless in battle until it evolves into the offensive powerhouse Gyarados. Abra, another example from the main series, shows up as well -- all it can do is [[TeleportSpam Teleport]] randomly about the battlefield. Unlike the main series, though, they can still be occasionally useful, able to grab prizes and banners. Dragon-types are also in prime form, starting with low stats and the very inaccurate Dragon Rage, then evolving into the powerhouses they are in the main series.
** Your starting Eevee, as an unevolved Pokemon, has somewhat low stats and a medium-power "Quick Attack" (its pluses being a fast movement range and "Celebrate" ability which gives a free turn every time it lands a KO) and may start lagging behind other Mons once you get the ability to befriend (stronger) wild Pokemon. Its evolutions on the other hand are quite powerful, but aside from one free set of Fire/Thunder/Water Stones for its original three forms, the game [[GuideDangIt doesn't explain how to acquire the other four.]] (Though considering two of those four--Leafeon and Glaceon--are location-based evolutions, it's not hard to make an educated guess for those at least.)

** Ransei means "turbulent times", an apt name for the [[JidaiGeki Sengoku Period]]-esque world the game is based on.

*** Terrera is derived from "terra", which is latin for "earth".

*** The ice nation is called Nixtorm. "Nix" is latin for "snow".

* OlympusMons: The legendary Pokemon that created Ransei is said to appear if Ransei is united. And that's not the only one in the game, as evidenced by the title screen.

* PsychicPowers: Naoe Kanetsugu levitates his ofuda around him - regardless of who his presently selected Pokémon is.

** Some of the fully evolved Pokemon are actually much more difficult to use effectively than their lesser counterparts due to changes in their movement range, attack move or special ability. Examples include:

*** Rhydon's attack is Drill Run, which moves it a tile forward to attack a single tile and is pretty powerful, and it's one of the few Ground-type attackers in the game (the only other feasible ones are Excadrill's Drill Run and Quagsire's Mud Bomb). The fully-evolved Rhyperior has Rock Wrecker as its attack, which hits a single tile three spaces away and is very powerful, but has a low base accuracy of 80% and can't be used on the next turn when it deals damage. Also, Speed determines accuracy and evasion in this game, so the naturally slow Rhyhorn line all suffer accuracy penalties. This results in Rhyperior having an attack that is difficult to line up to hit, will often miss, and if it hits it can't attack next turn, while Rhydon's attack has a much easier hitbox to work with, much more reliable accuracy, and can be used every turn. Even if there's a specific target you want to nuke with Rock Wrecker, it's doubtful whether Rhyperior will ever get a chance to target that Pokémon due to its movement range of 2, and it'll probably miss anyway. Not only is Rhyperior much worse than Rhydon, it's even arguably worse than Rhyhorn.
*** Munna has Hypnosis, which can put opponents to sleep for a few turns but has low accuracy and can't actually inflict damage. Its evolution, Musharna, has "Dream Eater" which ''does'' inflict damage, but only if the opponent is already asleep, so it's virtually useless on the battlefield if you have no way to put the enemy to sleep... which often requires dragging a Munna around (Musharna's ability can do so, but it rarely activates).

** Warlords aren't exempt from this either, as many "upgraded" warrior skills trade away one benefit for another that may not be nearly as useful.
*** After she transforms, Aya's warrior skill no longer heals your entire team, instead only healing those standing next to her. It boosts defense in an attempt to compensate, but the buff wears off after only one turn, giving it almost no utility.

*** Kanbei starts with Impact, a flinching skill that has excellent synergy with Chandelure's Fire Spin. After transformation, it's replaced with Extinguish, a skill whose only purpose is to nullify multi-turn warrior skills like Fortify and Adrenaline. To make matters worse, it affects your side, too.
* PsychoticSmirk: This is Kotaro's ''only'' 'emotive' sprite. Kanbei has one too, but it's more of a smug "just as planned" look, him being a master strategist and all.

* SecretArt: Since each species of Pokemon only gets to use one fixed move, many Pokemon have moves unique among other Mons in the region. Likewise, while there is a wide variety of generic Warrior abilities, upgraded Warlords receive Warrior abilities unique to them (in name if not effect).

** Recruiting Ranmaru - generally a good idea as both his standard and Perfect Link species are very useful in most postgame chapters - can be very difficult if you're trying to do it by the 'four turns' method (which you usually will be) for exactly this reason.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: The region's name -- "Ranse" is the Japanese spelling, while Ranse'''i''' is the English variant. This could be to prevent mispronunciation, most English speakers would read the Japanese spelling as "rans" instead of "ran-se"[[note]]technically "ra-n-se"[[/note]].

%%* StarterVillain: Hideyoshi, though "villain" is a bit of a stretch.
* StatusEffects: All major status ailments (poison, burn, paralyze, freeze, sleep, and confusion) from the main series are present here, although mostly as secondary effects of damage-dealing moves rather than status-ailing moves directly. (Munna is the only Pokémon in the region to have a status move -- "Hypnosis" -- rather than a damaging attack.)

* TheStoic: UsefulNotes/HattoriHanzo... doesn't show much emotion. His dialogue generally consists of brief, matter-of-fact statements such as "I linked with [Pokemon Name]." or "Victory." Borders on TheComicallySerious at times.

* TakingTheBullet: Pokemon with the "Bodyguard" ability will swap positions with an adjacent ally to protect them from enemy attacks, without regard to whether the attack will do more or less damage to them than the intended ally.

** In-battle, Power increases the damage your Pokemon can do, Wisdom decreases the damage they'll take, and Charisma increases both accuracy and evasion. This is separate from the stat system and applies directly to damage calculation; the effect is relatively minor compared to raw stat boosts, but it's there.

* TitleDrop: In the Japanese version, Nobunaga's Warlord Powers are titled Great Ambition and Extreme Ambition, while his English Rank II power is "Ambition." In both versions, after conquering Dragnor in the main story, Kenshin will say that "Nobunaga's ambition has been thwarted".

* WeaksauceWeakness: Crossing with PowerUpLetdown, many of the fully evolved Pokémon have attacks that can ''only'' hit several tiles ahead of them, like Rock Wrecker, Thunder, Psyshock, Dragon Rush, etc, which renders them unable to attack Pokémon directly in front of them (they have to back up a tile or two). If they're near the edge of a map this can result in them getting cornered, unable to attack whatsoever, allowing up to four weaker Pokemon to surround it and [[CherryTapping Cherry Tap]] [[DeathOfAThousandCuts it to death]] because they just can't fight back.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler: Nobunaga. His reason for trying to conquer Ransei and (later) for destroying Arceus? To bring peace back to the land and restore affection between warrior and Pokémon by eliminating the pesky legend that encourages Warlords to go conquer other territories.]]

* YamatoNadeshiko: Inahime has this ''as one of her Warrior Skills.'' Given that it increases movement range and [[ImprobableAimingSkills makes ALL attacks hit for three turns]], emphasis is placed on the ' inner iron' aspect of the trope.

* ArbitraryMinimumRange: Moves do not have a minimum range per se but merely differing areas of effect. Nonetheless, moves which can only hit two or three tiles away do mean the user cannot defend against an enemy engaging them at point blank, and must take a step back first.

* DifficultySpike: In the side stories, once you conquer about half of the available territories, your opponents will take notice, and their armies will receive a sudden jump in experience to match yours, usually with them attacking you on the following turn. Also falls under ScrappyMechanic.
** In the main story, the game takes off the kid gloves once you beat Shingen or Kenshin and start fighting Nobunaga for real. The next few kingdoms boast much, ''much'' more formidable enemies than anything you've faced up to that point; good strategy and maybe some level grinding are all but required to progress.

** Yoshimoto has unspectacular stats for a Warlord, mostly useless abilities, a bad Perfect Link line (Pineco and Forretress, the latter of which will only do one point of damage to most enemies), [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and a silly design and personality]]. But he can get 90% link with a variety of types. Load him up with a diverse group beforehand, recruit him in a later episode, and he'll more than likely have a Pokemon on hand that you can use as a sweeper, no matter what your neighbors have.

*** Rhydon's attack is Drill Run, which moves it a tile forward to attack a single tile and is pretty powerful, and it's one of the few Ground-type attackers in the game (the only other feasible ones are Excadrill's Drill Run and Quagsire's Mud Bomb). The fully-evolved Rhyperior has Rock Wrecker as its attack, which hits a single tile three spaces away and is very powerful, but has a low base accuracy of 80% and can't be used on the next turn when it deals damage. Also, Speed determines accuracy and evasion in this game, so the naturally slow Rhyhorn line all suffer accuracy penalties. This results in Rhyperior having an attack that is difficult to line up to hit, will often miss, and if it hits it can't attack next turn, while Rhydon's attack has a much easier hitbox to work with, much more reliable accuracy, and can be used every turn.

*** Lairon has Iron Head, a strong move coming from Lairon's surprisingly decent Attack stat. After evolving into Aggron, it loses a great deal of accuracy and movement range, in exchange for dealing only slightly more damage with Iron Tail.

* IllBoy: Hanbei is implied to be one at the end of his episode. Given in real life that Hanbei was a sickly person and ended up dying at a young age...

* BlindingBangs: Motochika and one of the generic ninja warrior designs. Subverted with Masamune, who ''has'' the eye-covering bangs, but they cover an EyepatchOfPower rather than an eye.

* NiceHat: The male hero's second helmet, No's Mismagius-inspired witch hat, Kanetsugu's tall, pope-like hat, Ieyasu's ''sword-like'' helmet.... They're all over the place.

** Reaching a 100% link with a Pokémon (which is only possible with each Warlord's Perfect Link Pokémon) removes any negative effects of their Pokémon's move, but actually getting to 100% link requires an ''awful lot'' of level grinding, and unless you intentionally drag a campaign out for years, the enemy will never get strong enough to make your perfect Pokémon actually required to match them.

[[caption-width-right:320:[[WarIsGlorious Gotta conquer 'em all]].]]

** The game's advertised [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters 200 warriors]] are comprised primarily of a little over three dozen different generic character designs re-used several times each with different names, type preferences, and abilities. Altogether, there's only around 70 unique designs for the warlords, or about 107 if you're feeling generous enough to include the evolved designs.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Not only are there 211 different Pokémon species in the game, but there are also 200 human characters, each with a [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_Conquest_characters historical counterpart]].

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: The two generic Warriors who invade you at the start. One of them uses [[ComMons Bidoof]]. [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain Um... yeah.]]

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: The initial story gradually opens access to more and more of the region as you claim kingdoms. The second 'section' of Ransei available contains Pugilis, full of Fighting-type Pokémon. The player character is the ruler of Aurora, the Normal-type kingdom; your starting Eevee can't evolve until after the game's halfway mark[[labelnote:*]]Technically, Leafeon's evolution condition is a stat threshold while deployed in Greenleaf, but that would require a LOT of grinding your Link[[/labelnote]]; and the other MandatoryPartyMember is Oichi, who has a Jigglypuff. Oichi voices her concern once when the kingdom becomes available, and then again when you first go to actually attack.

** Yoshimoto has unspectacular stats for a Warlord, mostly useless abilities, a bad Perfect Link line (Pineco and Forretress, the latter of which will only do one point of damage to most enemies), [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and a silly design and personality]]. But he can get 90% link with a variety of types. Load him up with a diverse group beforehand, recruit him in a later episode, and he'll more than likely have a Pokemon on hand that you can use as a sweeper, no matter what your neighbors have.\\
Another use for Yoshimoto is that Forretress's high defense combined with an instant healing ability whose drawback is making it UNABLE TO MOVE suddenly makes it an impenetrable StoneWall that no enemy can hope to get past, so long as ElementalRockPaperScissors they don't bring [[KillItWithFire a fire type along.]] As an added bonus, Forretress can be given the Jagged Edge ability, [[TheSpiny which damages attacking enemies that make contact]] and offsets its crappy attack by making opponents kill themselves trying to get past it. (Hilariously, Jagged Edge always leaves enemies with at least 1 HP, which is exactly the same amount of damage that Forretress does.) This means that for any mission where you have to HoldTheLine (which is every mission you are the one getting attacked for, as well as to an extent every mission with banners), he's a very powerful Warlord, only outclassed by the likes of Ieyasu and his [[OlympusMons Registeel]] - and if you use both of them together...

There is a six-chapter manga adaptation named ''Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition: Ranse Picture Scroll'' that began on March 16, 2012 and is hosted on [[http://seiga.nicovideo.jp/comic/48?list Niconico Seiga]].

** On the ''Pokémon'' side of things, Fire Spin is one of a selection of moves in the core series with relatively low damage in exchange for preventing the victim from switching out and taking 1/16th of their HP at the end of the next two-to-five turns. In ''Conquest'', this is turned into two-to-five ''hits'' in ''one'' turn, each with the power of the initial blow instead of being fractional.

* ConvectionSchmonvection: Non-Fire-type Pokémon (particularly the Ice and Grass ones), and humans for that matter, seem perfectly fine with battling in the middle of a volcano. Just don't order your Pokemon to actually try crossing the lava....

* DarkerAndEdgier: To the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' side of the crossover, as the monsters which are usually used in friendly competitions become weapons of war in this game. The humans themselves don't actually fight each other ''personally'', though; DuelsDecideEverything as per ''Pokemon'' tradition.

* InstantWinCondition: Banner battles are won by capturing all the flag banners on the field, regardless of whether you can defeat the opposing Mons or not. Be careful though -- if the enemy does this first, ''they'' win, too!

* TheMedic: Oichi's Warrior Skill heals your whole team, so she could be considered one. However, there's no rule forcing her to use Jigglypuff or Wigglytuff, so you can link her with something much stronger like Staraptor, making her more of a CombatMedic.

%%* TheStarscream: Mitsuhide to Nobunaga in his postgame scenario, in reference to real world Mitsuhide's ambush of Nobunaga.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: The two generic Warlords who invade you at the start. One of them uses [[ComMons Bidoof]]. [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain Um... yeah.]]
* ThoseTwoGuys: Hanbei and Kanbei during Hideyoshi's scenario.

* TheStarscream: Mitsuhide to Nobunaga in his postgame scenario, in reference to real world Mitsuhide's ambush of Nobunaga.
* StandardStatusEffects: All major status ailments (poison, burn, paralyze, freeze, sleep, and confusion) from the main series are present here, although mostly as secondary effects of damage-dealing moves rather than status-ailing moves directly. (Munna is the only Pokémon in the region to have a status move -- "Hypnosis" -- rather than a damaging attack.)
* StarterVillain: Hideyoshi, though "villain" is a bit of a stretch.

* UnwinnableByMistake:

* UndyingLoyalty: Ranmaru to Nobunaga.

** Choosing to evolve your Eevee into Glaceon. To do so, you need to use it in Nixtorm... one of the ''last three'' nations before the final battle. As a tradeoff, you'll be super-effective against ''all'' of Nobunaga's Dragon-type Pokémon. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for you, that isn't the final battle, and you'll soon be staring down a powerful Dragon/Flying-type that you won't be allowed to use Glaceon against.]]

* AdaptationalBadass: Yoshimoto goes from Samurai Warriors' JokeCharacter and flat-out worst character to coming with a Pineco, the best unevolved Bug-type available at that point. Sadly this pairing doesn't last long, since while Yoshimoto gets slightly better after transforming (Grace is possibly worth using if you have a teammate with Shout, whereas Deep Breath is almost never worth using), Forretress is a defender in a game that focuses heavily on the offensive roles. Ultimately, however, Yoshimoto still ends up much better than he was in Samurai Warriors, since there's no rule saying that he has to use Forretress.

* DummiedOut:
** [[https://tcrf.net/File:PSL_Alpha_Title_Pokemon_Conquest.png An image]] featuring the male player character and his Eevee facing against Mitsuhide and his Moltres (which doesn't appear in the final game) was only used in the alpha build and is never used in the final game, though the graphic can still be found.
** Sprites of Growlithe can be found in the game's graphics folder, suggesting that it (along with Arcanine, though the latter has no sprites) was supposed to be included in the game.
** There are several bits of unused text, including names of gym leaders and villainous team members from various ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games as well as trainer classes that would look out of place in this game (Firebreather, Tuber, Youngster, etc.). Also, classic ''Pokémon'' items (Poké Balls, Escape Rope, Exp. Share, etc.) have names, though all of their descriptions use placeholder text.
** Then there are the "dummy" items, most notably the three "dummy" equipment that are supposed to raise the chance of recruiting warriors.[[note]]The final game actually determines whether a warrior can be recruited or not based on whether you've fulfilled one (or more) of the four specific conditions (defeat the warrior's Pokémon in 4 turns, use a super-effective attack, take no damage, or (for recruiting warlords only) have a warlord finish off the enemy's Pokémon)[[/note]]

** [[spoiler:It's very possible that, at the end of the Legend of Ransei story, your best Pokémon on your hero/heroine is more powerful than Arceus, who you are forced to use. Especially true if you chose to evolve Eevee into Glaceon, which would be able to attack Rayquaza for ''4x damage'' if only you were allowed to use it.]]

** After a time you'll notice that the game will ''never'' let any Pokemon flinch twice in a row, for any reason. As flinch effectively forces you to skip your turn completely, it's a welcome relief.